SBP: Inequity and Mistrust of Scientific Information - Understanding Science Misinformation in Black Communities and Developing Community-Driven Science Communication Strategies

Black American experiences can pose particular challenges for effective communication on issues related to science and medicine, and recent misinformation campaigns have increasingly sought to capitalize on beliefs underlying mistrust within Black communities to spread misinformation. While phenomena related to the COVID-19 pandemic are most timely, there is a need to develop community-driven, effective strategies for public communications targeted toward Black Americans on a range of science-related issues, based on detailed findings about specific beliefs and attitudes relevant to the unique experiences Black Americans have with science. Developing a clearer understanding of how Black American experiences shape thinking about science-related topics, and the group-level dynamics that may lead to the uptake (or rejection) of misinformation and the formation (or avoidance) of misperceptions within these communities, holds great promise for advancing research on science communication in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, genetics and genomics, and more. Such an approach would help guide more effective and inclusive public engagement efforts, and provide practitioners with new insights into how to responsibly address past and present inequities in messaging across a variety of scientific issues and policy areas, and to the development of appropriately targeted and tailored efforts to mitigate the negative effects of widespread misinformation about scientific topics, both in the short and long term. To address these issues, our project takes an iterative approach to better understand the specific ways that underlying beliefs and worldviews about science and scientific institutions are related to scientific misperceptions among Black Americans, and then, in conjunction with Black American communities, develop and test communication strategies for more effective efforts to combat science-related misinformation and misperceptions. In the earlier phases of the project, we will use Black American focus groups and national surveys with oversamples of Black Americans to identify key topics and issues in which Black Americans encounter science-related misinformation, as well as to better understand specific beliefs and worldviews related to science within Black American communities. Based on these findings, as well as in-depth interviews with seasoned communication practitioners with a history of combatting misinformation in Black American communities, we will then develop a communications toolkit to guide other science communicators engaged in similar efforts across a range of science-related issues. Key strategies and messages from the toolkit will be evaluated in three national survey experiments administered to Black American samples. Throughout the project, a series of community conversations will support a rich dialogue between researchers and community members, ensuring that our insights and recommended communications strategies position Black Americans' lived experiences as integral to their engagement with scientific information, institutions, and careers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.